One day we were lying on the grass in hot sun, drying off. A girl about my own age, she pushed me and left the prints of her muddy fingertips on my body. The mud dried pale on my skin. She said, “Like a leopard!” So then they all dipped their fingers in the clay and covered me with leopardy marks. “Animal, jungli Animal!” The name, like the mud, stuck. The nuns tried to stop it but some things have a logic that can’t be denied. How do you shit, when your arse is up in the air and legs too weak to squat? Not easy. What do you look like as the turds tumble from your hindquarters? Like a donkey dropping dung, when I walk, it’s
feet on tiptoe
head down below
arse en haut
thus do I go
In my street years I hated to see dogs fucking, my mates would shout, “Hey Animal, is this how you do it?”
They’d make a fist, ram two fingers in and out with loud sucking noises, then let on the fingers were trapped, they’d yell, “Hey Fourlegs, you get glued up like this, you and your girlfriend? You and Jara?” Never have I been able to cope with teasing. I’d lose my temper, fataak! I know how to fight. Early in life I learned to look out for myself, to put myself first, before all others and every other thing. Who else was going to stick up for me? It’s a bad idea to attack an opponent who can kick shit out of you, I got a few beatings, but if they know you’ll fight back, people mostly leave you alone. Plus I used to bite. Maybe they were afraid of getting rabies.
Jara’s my friend. She wasn’t always. We used to be enemies. In the days of living on the street we were rivals for food. We used to work the same territory, the alleys behind the eating houses in the old city. We’d get there late evening when the waiters were tired and would sling the day’s scraps at, rather than in, the bins. Such delicacies we fought over, bit of naan, thrown-down banana skin, with nub of meat going gooey brown where someone had not fancied it. I might arrive to find Jara crouching over some prize, a bone to which clung a few shreds of mutton, a splash of daal. Or I’d be there first, slobbering over a choice morsel, and look up to see her eyes fastened on mine, drooling from the back corners of her mouth. I was scared of her. Of her sharp teeth, her orangey-brown eyes in which there was no friendliness. She’d lie and watch me until hunger drove her forward, crouching on her haunches, a low growl, rrrrr, starting in her throat. I came to know that snarling mouth quite well. A long curved tooth in her lower jaw had lost its tip. When she got close enough for me to see that tooth, I’d back away.
One day, I found a thing with flies sticking to it like peppercorns, fish-snout with backbone protruding behind, a fair slab of flesh, brown with masalas, lying on a bed of rice, remains of someone’s dinner. I’d begun making a feast of it when I heard her growl. The fish was too good to give up. I stuck firm as she made her approach, the lips lifted over those evil yellow teeth. She started all that rrrrr business. I don’t know how, but some rebellion ignited inside me. On all fours I rushed at her snapping my jaws, growling louder than she, the warning of a desperate animal that will stick at nothing. She turned and slunk back a few paces, then lay down again, giving me a reproachful look.
She was as thin as me, her hide shrunken over her ribs. A pink sore on her nose was leaking some clear mess. With my own body pumped full of victory I suddenly felt sorry for her. I fed myself then moved off, gestured for her to come close. “Eat!” She licked her lips, wagged her tail so hard her whole backside shook. Man, what a dog. A yellow dog, of no fixed abode and no traceable parents, just like me. After this we always shared. I named her Banjara, gypsy, free spirit, because she belongs nowhere and everywhere is her kingdom.
Jara and me, one day we are up to our tricks outside a cafe where I’ve not been before, it’s not one of my usual dirty dabas. This is a smart coffeehouse with a garden and a big sign saying Coca-Cola, I can’t read the sign but I know what it says. These girls are sitting at a table under a tree, drinking lassi. Three girls, college students by look. Often they’ll be quite generous, so I’ve started my patter about how we are perishing from starvation etc., at a sign from me, Jara, canny bitch, rolls on her back and plays dead.
One of the three gets up. Comes out, stands looking at the dog and me. Some girls primp themselves up like film stars with kajal round the eyes, long sleek hair and all, this one isn’t like that. Her hair looks like it hasn’t been oiled for a month, kameez and scarf don’t match, nose is a touch too long. She doesn’t smile, doesn’t offer money. She doesn’t do any of the things people normally do when I pester them. She’s frowning, all serious.
“Pretty clever. Did you teach her?”
“For five rupees she’ll whine the national anthem.”
“Is begging fun?”
Well, this catches me, no one’s ever asked such a thing before. This girl bends to pat Jara and her hair falls over her face, pretty she may not be but there’s a sweetness in her which you sometimes see in people without looks.
“Is it fun to be hungry?” I reply. “No, so then don’t mock, give me five rupees.”
“Not I,” says she, chewing her lip. “You’ve a look of mischief about you, I’ve seen you before. You roam round the city doing scams.”
“What scams? If you won’t give five rupees at least give a smile.”
“You like winding people up. I think you enjoy being annoying.”
“It’s all they deserve. People are cretins.”
“Cretins? So is that what makes it fun?”
“Fun was your idea, not mine,” I say, liking this girl. Most people who talked to me just told me to fuck off.
“Get off with you, you’re up to all the tricks. I’d be surprised if you go hungry.”
“What do you know about it?”
But she was right. I was well schooled in street work. My teacher was Ali Faqri, he’d in turn been trained by the prince of scams, Abdul Saliq the Pir Gate beggar. Faqri told me to stop creeping round behind the eateries. There, if I was caught arse-up in the bins, best I could expect was disgust maybe a kicking. “Go round the front,” Faqri said. So I began parading up and down in view of the clientele, nothing puts a person off their food more than a starving Animal watching every mouthful. The proprietors hated me but they’d give me hand-outs rather than have me upset their customers. I got the same left-overs, only this time served nicely in a bowl. In this way I learned that if you act powerless, you are powerless, the way to get what you want is to demand it.
“I’m Nisha,” says this serious girl. “What’s your name?”
“Animal. Now you have to guess why.”
“Okay Animal, you’re bright, you could do something more useful than this.” Nisha told me that if I came to her father’s house, which was in a part of Khaufpur known as the Chicken Claw, she would find me some work to do.
“And,” says she, “you can meet Zafar.”
I was stupid, I should have been warned by the way she spoke his name, but already I was walking in dreams.
“Come tomorrow at noon. I’ll give you a meal. You can eat it in our garden. The dog too.”
Well, Eyes, I guess you want to know what happened next, but while I’ve been chatting with you the sun has risen, it’s dropped down through the hole in the roof, making the floating dust catch fire. The thousand eyes have begun to fade, they are melting away or else somehow merging into just one pair of eyes, which are yours. You and me, we’re alone together now, but I can’t keep going. I’m tired of talking, tape’s nearly gone, mouth’s dry, I should make chai, plus it’s past time for my shit.